"We have seen corporate landlords—who own a larger share of the rental market than ever before—use inflation as an excuse to hike rents and reap excess profits beyond what should be considered fair and reasonable."
Rent goes up because we have insufficient housing construction, and we have insufficient going construction becuause zoning laws prevent housing construction. Literally none of the places you bring up have anything approaching a free market wrt housing construction.
I am aware that the government can encourage building and it should do so. Vote locally to repeal zoning laws.
If government says the private sector cannot do something, then yeah you’ll see few or no businesses doing that thing.
Zoning is only a small part of the problem. Even if you zoned a bunch of new land today, if you let the private, free market have its course, then what do you think will be built on that land? Highly unaffordable luxury flats/houses, because that is what leads to the highest profit margins for the private sectors builders. And those flats will be bought up by investors or wealthy individuals to create more unaffordable rent.
That’s the core issue, individual private sector interests are not aligned to be altruistic interests for the good of society. They want to maximise profit, nothing more. Hence, you need someone willing to build houses and sell them at a loss, so average people can afford housing again. Only the government can sell for a loss and remain in business.
Ergo, you can zone all the land you want, but if you only let private sector builders have it, then you’ll just get more and more unaffordable properties built, chasing rich foreign investors, tech millionaires, or pension funds.
This is the core issue with Thatcherism/deregulation/privatisation. An individual company’s profit margins don’t always align with the good of society, but society needs essential services (water, sewage, electricity, food, housing, defense). These things need to be provided to all citizens, urban and rural, but doing so doesn’t always guarantee a profit, so you can’t just leave it to the private sector only.
Rent goes up because we have insufficient housing construction, and we have insufficient going construction becuause zoning laws prevent housing construction. Literally none of the places you bring up have anything approaching a free market wrt housing construction.
I am aware that the government can encourage building and it should do so. Vote locally to repeal zoning laws.
If government says the private sector cannot do something, then yeah you’ll see few or no businesses doing that thing.
Zoning is only a small part of the problem. Even if you zoned a bunch of new land today, if you let the private, free market have its course, then what do you think will be built on that land? Highly unaffordable luxury flats/houses, because that is what leads to the highest profit margins for the private sectors builders. And those flats will be bought up by investors or wealthy individuals to create more unaffordable rent.
That’s the core issue, individual private sector interests are not aligned to be altruistic interests for the good of society. They want to maximise profit, nothing more. Hence, you need someone willing to build houses and sell them at a loss, so average people can afford housing again. Only the government can sell for a loss and remain in business.
Ergo, you can zone all the land you want, but if you only let private sector builders have it, then you’ll just get more and more unaffordable properties built, chasing rich foreign investors, tech millionaires, or pension funds.
This is the core issue with Thatcherism/deregulation/privatisation. An individual company’s profit margins don’t always align with the good of society, but society needs essential services (water, sewage, electricity, food, housing, defense). These things need to be provided to all citizens, urban and rural, but doing so doesn’t always guarantee a profit, so you can’t just leave it to the private sector only.